1. County Gardens Trusts Historic Landscape Project What’s the story?
I’m going to give background to the CB300 project you’re launching on, explaining what CGTs are up to more broadly speaking, and how it all fits together into one splendid jigsaw. I know that many of you are new folk from NADFAS so I’m trying to tread a tightrope of addressing much of this to you, who maybe know very little about CGTs, whilst not boring longer-standing CGT members.
About HLP and me – 2010, NE, then GHS, AGT, EH. Capacity building CGTs to play active conservation role (NB conservation includes research)
Mainly building networks and training - Responding to Planning Applications, Settings and Significance, Designation, Using Social Media, Managing Volunteers
Historic Landscape Project

2. What are CGTs? Well, here’s a gallery to give you an idea of the jolly things they’re up to. We’re talking about visiting landscapes, studying landscapes, recording, discussing with likeminded people, undertaking work in the planning system, raising the profile of landscapes, fighting the corner.
Q: HOW MANY OF YOU ARE MEMBERS OF OGT?
HOW MANY ARE FAMILIAR WITH OGT?
JOINED BECAUSE OF WALLED GARDENS?

3. What are County Gardens Trusts?
35 County Gardens Trusts – CGTs
Association of Gardens Trusts (AGT) - Umbrella body
Autonomous charitable organisations
Membership 50 – 400+ per county
Members – volunteers – active and inactive…
Research & Recording Groups
Conservation Groups
Education initiatives
Garden visiting groups
Working Together … merger – Garden History Society (GHS)
So hopefully those pics have made you feel warm and fuzzy, but we do need some gritty details to explain what CGT are:
35 County Gardens Trusts – CGTs
Association of Gardens Trusts (AGT) - Umbrella body
Autonomous charitable organisations
Membership 50 – 400+ per county
Members – volunteers – active and inactive…
Each has a committee of Trustees with sub groups such as Research and Recording groups, Conservation Groups
Research & Recording Groups
Conservation Groups
Education initiatives
Garden visiting groups
Working Together … merger – Garden History Society (GHS)
Historic Landscape Project

4. Historic Landscape Project
Gardens Trusts?
Or Historic Designed Landscape Trusts?
Need to clarify the title…
Yes, we are interested in pretty gardens, such as these Hill Close Gardens in Warwickshire, but when we say ‘gardens’ we tend to be using it as a shorthand for the much wider reaching ‘historic designed landscapes’
Q: NADFAS FOLK, AM CURIOUS TO KNOW WHERE ‘LAY’ PEOPLE STAND IN THE GARDENS = LANDSCAPE THING – HAD YOU REALISED THAT WE ARE NOT JUST DEALING WITH GARDENS?
Historic Landscape Project

5. Historic Landscape Project
We’re also talking about wider parkland such as Capability Brown one at Croome in Worcestershire
(Photo courtesy of Steffie Shields)
Historic Landscape Project

6. Historic Landscape Project
And all manner of designed landscapes including urban public parks, garden squares, cemeteries, institutional landscapes such as hospitals. This is London Road Cemetery, Coventry (Grade I RPG - Joseph Paxton, 1847; v early example of a municipal cemetery)]
Historic Landscape Project

7. Historic Landscape Project
Also very interested in Setting - that is the landscape around the actual park or garden that provides its backdrop, often very intentionally by design
Lyveden New Bield, Northants – wnd farm proposal wasn’t in the actual garden but was in the views (setting) to and from Lyveden so would have had a massive impact
Historic Landscape Project

8. Historic Landscape Project
Who are CGT members?
Professional and amateur skills
Wide knowledge and specialisms
Local (and national) knowledge
Local and national contacts
Who are members?
Members come from all kinds of professional and amateur backgrounds. Lots of retired planners!
Q: EVERYONE IS WELCOME, WHAT KINDS OF BACKGROUNDS DO WE HAVE HERE TODAY? PLANNERS?
Some just like visiting nice gardens but most have a wide knowledge and specialism, even those with amateur backgrounds.
LOCAL (and national) KNOWLEDGE – level of expertise often astounding – connections they can make between sites and themes
Many also have excellent local and national contacts of relevance, either pre-existing or ones that they’ve built up through their involvement in the CGT.
Historic Landscape Project

9. What do CGTs actually do?
So what do CGTs actually do?
Well, of course they are great at organising lovely garden visits and interesting lectures – this is a given so I’m not even going to talk about it today.
Going to whizz through the kind of other things they do, ending up with Research in a bit more detail, because that’s the bit that’s of most interest to us today.

10. Education
Education - Schools, wider public, much of this is actual gardening or creating new gardens, especially with schools. This is great work, but we’re not here to talk about that today!

11. Historic Landscape Project
Conservation
Planning Applications
Designation
Heritage Lottery Fund projects
Landscapes At Risk
Environmental Stewardship with Natural England
Local Plan / Local Listing
Conservation. CGTs do a lot of great work conserving historic designed landscapes and the HLP is funded specifically to encourage this (I know you are here because of research, but as I’ll explain in a minute, conservation and research are intrinsically linked.)
The kinds of things that can threaten landscapes are:
Neglect
Poor management
Lack of investment
Development
Change of use
Lack of natural/historical balance
Lack of understanding of significance
This conservation work can be:
Commenting on Planning Applications affecting parks and gardens (now doing this in close liaison with the GHS, who are a statutory consultee)
Designation – putting sites forward to be nationally designated as heritage assets by going on to the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest, the landscape equivalent of listing. Equally, commenting on EH’s proposals to designate something.
Heritage Lottery Fund projects – commenting, steering HLF restoration projects
Landscapes At Risk - English Heritage increasingly focusses its work on sites that it feels to be At Risk (it creates official lists of sites At Risk), and we hope that CGTs are going to be involved in spotting these sites, and then helping them to move away from being At Risk.
Environmental Stewardship with Natural England – NE funds landscape works that can include restorations and improvements, and a large part of the HLP that I work for has been to encourage CGTs and NE to liaise on making sure that these schemes are to the good of the historic designed landscape.
Local Plan / Local Listing – We have national designations for sites (putting them on the EH Register) but, thanks largely to the CGTs, many counties maintain their own lists of sites of local importance that need to be acknowledged and protected in the planning system.
Q: HAS ANYONE HERE BEEN INVOLVED IN ANY OF THIS KIND OF WORK OR ANYTHING SIMILAR? EITHER FOR OGT OR ELSEWHERE?
Now, I’ve headed this Conservation, but we are all clear that the traditional division between Research and Conservation is not a healthy one as the two tie together with such great symbiosis. As I’ve gone through the list of conservation activities, you will have realized that all of this involves Applying research and survey information, which brings me on to the CGT activity that will most interest you – research.
By way of example of how Conservation and Research link up: here is Indio House in Devon. There was an application to build over 100 new houses in its parkland. The lpa asked Devon GT to add it to the Devon Gazetteer – so at Local List level - which it did, and then DGT put in an objection – consequently the application was refused.
Historic Landscape Project

12. Historic Landscape Project
BY UNDERSTANDING
the historic environment
people value it
BY VALUING
it they will want to
care for it
BY CARING
for it they will help people enjoy it
FROM ENJOYING
the historic environment comes a thirst to understand it
It’s useful to look at it in terms of English Heritage’s diagram demonstrating the value of understanding to the conservation cycle.
I shall particularly emphasise the ‘understanding it’ and valuing it’ areas
Research into the historic development of a garden is essential in order to understand what we have now, and therefore work out what is of value, of significance.
[Where research and recording is undertaken with local partners such as the county gardens trust or local archive centres, and, of course, owners themselves, the knowledge and significance of a site is both deepened and disseminated more widely and publicly, promoting a cycle of understanding, valuing, enjoying and protecting the designed, historic environment.]
Historic Landscape Project

13. Historic Landscape Project
Research
Researching local landscapes
Site survey and recording
Understanding significance
Writing up concisely, consistently, professionally
But they also undertake serious and invaluable research work, and this is what you want to hear about I think.
I’m preaching to the converted, so you’ll already appreciate that this research isn’t just about ‘Gathering information’.
CGTs are busy researching local landscapes that would otherwise go unrecognized (as well as ones of national importance).
This work includes days in the archives, but also involves walking the ground with a site survey and recording and an appreciation and noting of what survives in the landscape today as well as finding the details of its past.
CGTs and their research work are also at the forefront of the conservation move to ensure an understanding of the significance of sites – I’ll talk more about this later on today.
And of course, what you’ll see about CGT research is that we are making sure that work is written up concisely, consistently, professionally.
So what use is this research being put to? We have zero tolerance to that enjoyable but self-indugent approach which sees years of research simply being stored in a shoebox under someone’s bed. Our work needs to enter the outside world and pay its way!
Historic Landscape Project

14. Historic Landscape Project
*PK Stembridge Thomas Goldney’s Garden (1996) pp30 £3.50 ISBN
Peggy Stembridge Thomas Goldney, Man of Property (1991) ISBN *Stewart Harding and David Lambert Parks and Gardens of Avon (1994)
pp132 £7.95 p/b ISBN
*R Guilding Historic Public Parks: Bath (1997) with Bath and NE Somerset Council
pp76 p/b ISBN £5.95
*D Lambert Historic Public Parks : Bristol (2000) with Bristol City Council
pp72 p/b £5.95 ISBN
D Lambert Historic Public Parks: Weston-Super-Mare (1998)
pp56 £5.95 ISBN
Journal
[Planning a gazetteer for 2010]
*[Caversham Court Gardens: A Heritage Guide Friends of Caversham Court 2012]
 *Talking Heads: Garden Statuary in the Eighteenth Century (2007) 32pp A4
*Flowers in the Landscape (2008)
**The Gardens of Cambridgeshire: A Gazetteer (2002)ISBN
*John Drake Wood and Ingram A Huntingdonshire (2008) 260pp pb
ISBN £14.00
*Journal (2005 and 2008) annually since 1991
Sue Pring, Editor Glorious Gardens of Cornwall (1996) [gazetteer]
Occasional Papers Vol 1 (2002) *Steven Pugsley (Editor) Devon Gardens: An Historical Survey (1994) Alan Sutton in association with Devon Gardens Trust ISBN
 Todd Gray The Garden History of Devon: An Illustrated Guide to the Sources University of Exeter Press in association with Devon Gardens Trust (1995)
ISBN
A Short History of he Devon Gardens Trust ( )
*Journal No 1 (2008)
* Journal No 2 (2010)
* Journal No 3
 *Journal No 2 (January 2012)
*Journal No 3 (January 2013)
Fiona Cowell and G Green (Editors) Repton in Essex (2002)
*Angela Taigel Historic Designed Landscapes, Planning and Conservation Guidance (2003) A4 pp100 £17.50 ISBN
EGT Epping Forest District: Inventory of Designed Landscapes (2004 – unpublished)
*Twigs Way (Editor) Paper Landscapes: Archive Based Studies on Historic Gardens and Landscapes in Essex (2005)
*Twigs Way Rooted in Essex EG Trust Archive Research Group (2006) A5 Paper Places
*Twigs Way (Editor) The Living Landscape: Animals in the Parks and Gardens of Essex (2009) A4 pp90 p/b £10.00 ISBN (10 articles)
*Gill Hedley and Adrian Rance Pleasure Grounds: The Gardens and Landscapes of Hampshire Milestone Publications (1987) Catalogue of Exhibition at Southampton City Art Gallery in conjunction with Hampshire Gardens Trust ISBN
*Journal 24 (2005), 25 (2006), 26 (2007)
 *David Whitehead, Edited by Janet Patton A Survey of Historic Parks and Gardens in Herefordshire Hereford and Worcester GT (2001)
*Grant, Fiona and Patton, Jane (Editors) The Walled Gardens of Hereford with Logaston Press (2009) ISBN
 Richard Bisgrove Hertfordshire Gardens on Ermine Street (1996)
Patience Bagenal Hertingfordbury Park and its Links with the Bayfordbury Estate (2000)
*Hertfordshire GT and Tom Williamson The Parks and Gardens of West Hertfordshire
(2000) ISBN
Anne Rowe A History of Knebworth’s Parks (2005)
*Anne Rowe (Editor) Hertfordshire Garden History: A Miscellany University of Hertfordshire Press (2007) [Research work of Hertfordshire GT]
ISBN
A Presentation of Parks: a Survey of Amenity Parks and Gardens in Kent (date?)
*Elisabeth Hall Garden of England: Evolution of Historic Gardens in Kent n.d.
ISBN
Cemeteries and Churchyards (1996)
Funding London’s Heritage Landscapes (1997)
The Gardens of Canons (1997)
London’s Garden Suburbs (1998)
City Parks (1999)
The Gardens of Wanstead (1999)
London Views (2000)
Journal (annually since ?)
Gazetteer (2014)
Patsy Dallas, Roger last and TomWilliamson Norfolk Gardens and Designed Landscapes (2014)
*The Historic Deer Parks of Northamptonshire (2002) A3 folded leaflet
*The Walled Kitchen Gardens of Oxfordshire (2014)
 Historic Parks and Gardens of Shropshire Paul Stamper (? CGT publication – check!)
* Lois Hall (Editor) Walled Kitchen Gardens (2003) ISBN
*‘Pastime of Pleasure’: A Celebration of Suffolk Gardens from the Seventeenth Century to the Present Day Exhibition with Manor House Museum (2000)
 Guildford Borough Council for Surrey Gardens Trust Nature and Tradition: Arts and Crafts Architecture and Gardens in and around Guildford (1993)
*Joan Percy In Pursuit of the Picturesque: William Gilpin’s Surrey Expedition
(2001) ISBN
*Josey, Don and Saich, Dinah Broome Park, Betchworth; with a Bit about Ice-houses
(2005) ISBN
Mavis Batey (Editor) A Celebration of John Evelyn: Proceedings to Mark the Tercentenary of his Death (2007)
*Campden House (1994) 5pp A4
*Honington Hall (nd. 1995?) 7pp A4
*Radway Grange (2003) 7pp A4
*Wroxton Abbey (Oxon) (1997) 7pp A4
Journal ( ,*2005,*2006,*2007)
The Obelisks of Warwickshire (2013) ISBN pb
 Historic Gardens of the Vale of Glamorgan published by Welsh Historic Gardens Trust ISBN ; 2007, Edited by Hilary M. Thomas.
*Journal (Nos , 1997, 51 & , , )
 Helen Lazenby Plumpton Rocks, Knaresborough (1997)
*With Abundance and Variety: Yorkshire Gardens and Gardeners across Five Centuries
(2009) ISBN pp188 pb £18.25 from publisher inc p&p (£16)
David Palmer Historic Parks and Gardens of Ceredigion (2004)
Publishing
Many CGTs have been publishing their research on their websites, or producing excellent books, such as this by OGT. EH and HLF funded.
Norfolk have just gone into second reprint of their new book on their county gardens.
Historic Landscape Project

15. Historic Environment Records (HER)
These are local authority run public access records of the whole historic environment of a county, district or unitary authority that can be linked to a specific spatial entity or location. Generally but not always available on internet.
Increasingly though, CGTs are hearing our calls to make sure that their research is used to the benefit of conservation, by adding it the Historic Environment Records (HERs).
Q: ANYONE USED HERS? PUT MATERIAL ON?
HERs cover all kinds of sites:
Most records include:
Nationally designated sites (Scheduled Monuments, Registered Parks and Gardens, Listed Buildings)
Locally designated sites (Conservation Areas, Locally Listed Buildings)
all reported archaeological sites
historic buildings
historic landscapes
archaeological events (investigations, surveys etc)
A record for a particular site can comprise of
a computerised database linked to GIS mapping
reports
illustrations
aerial photographs
historic mapping
other backup material
library
online HER websites
On screen here is an example of the kind of hi-tech mapping, layering and interrogation that HERs can make possible by pooling together various pieces of research and record. Basically, they can take our research and give it wings!
Who uses HERs?
local residents and community groups
students and academics
schools
commercial contractors and consultants
government and other national agencies And the really exciting bit is:
local authority planning officers
conservation and historic building officers
You may or may not know that the government’s planning framework that local planning authorities have to work to (National Planning Policy Framework, NPPF) obliges planning applicants to consider the significance of a heritage asset in their application, and local authorities to again consider the significance of heritage assets in making a decision. In doing so NPPF obliges local authorities to maintain these Historic Environment Records as the place where this information will be found. So, you can see that if local authority officers consult the HER in order to decide whether an application will have an unacceptably detrimental effect on a heritage asset or not, it is huge power to CGTs’ elbow if we can have made sure that the information we want officers to see with regard to a site’s importance is on there!
Historic Landscape Project

16. www.parkandgardens.org (PGUK)
Parks & Gardens UK is the leading on-line resource for historic parks and gardens providing freely accessible, accurate and inspiring information on UK parks, gardens and designed landscapes and all activities concerned with their promotion, conservation and management.
Additional information and new sites are added as information becomes available. This website has no statutory authority with regard to planning or other permissions.
Q: ANYONE USED PGUK? SEE IT’S POTENTIAL?
Signed up to by AGT, GHS (supported by EH, HLF etc, although funding rather thin on the ground at the moment) – is the home for many of the projects being undertaken by theses organisations and we are encouraging CGTs to make sure that their research goes onto PGUK as well as HERs (indeed, many HERs pull their info off of PGUK)
Q: DID THE OGT WALLED GARDEN RESEARCH GO ON THERE?
This is where the Capability Brown research you are all undertaking for the tercentenary celebrations will go.
Look into top right hand corner of home page, under Projects, and you will see a section fro CB300.

17. CGT research projects Local lists Historic Environment Records
Statements of Significance
Themes – walled gardens
First World War Centenary
Capability Brown Tercentary
CGTs do a huge amount of ongoing work, but they do always like to bundle it up into a ‘project’ wherever possible. (As you’ll know, it’s such a satisfying way to work, creating a real momentum and buzz.)
Kinds of projects they have been tackling of late are:
Creating local lists of historic designed landsacpes of local importance, and feeding these into the local authority planning system
Getting their material onto the HERs
Statements of Significance for sites already researched
Researching local landscapes in a particular theme – OGT’s walled gardens (I hope Joanna really bigs up that OGT was encouraged to do this by EH and funded by HLF – ie CGTs are really well respected!)
And researching for particular events, such as 1WW centenary, both looking into particular themes such as ‘gardening for food’ and also recording War Memorial landscapes for PGUK and also the Register of Parks and Gardens (ie, addition to national designation)
And of course, CB300 – big push nationally to research CB landsacpes, known and potential, to gather more material, get it accessible via PGUK, and clear up some of the uncertainties about what he did and didn’t do.
Q: JOANNA ETC, I MUST HAVE MISSED SOME PROJECTS …

18. Historic Landscape Project
Welcome to newcomers!
New vitality!
Support for their structure and strategy
To be outward-looking
Active volunteers bringing in new skills, experience and perspectives
To share out work
Many of you here today are relatively new, either via NADFAS or other
You are so very welcome!
CGTs are a friendly bunch and many of us have known each other for a long time, but we always need and welcome new folk!
Because:
New vitality!
Support for their structure and strategy
To be outward-looking
Active volunteers bringing in new skills, experience and perspectives
To share out work
Historic Landscape Project

19. Historic Landscape Project
Joining Up
Garden History Society
English Heritage
Natural England
Parks & Gardens UK
Local Authorities
National Amenity Societies
NADFAS!
In recent years, we have all been working hard to make links, friendships, working partnerships wherever possible as there is strength in numbers and in unity.
CGTs now work closely with
GHS – working together on planning, merger
EH: WW1 – Commemorative Landscapes; Designations
Landscapes At Risk
Specific small research and survey projects
Support for owners
Highlight landscapes of concern
We’re starting to work much more closely with Natural England
Designed landscapes can be a target for NE funding especially with water bodies or SSSIs
P&GUK – national database of parks and gardens - building up info through receiving research reports
Local Authorities:
Need information on their HER
Support for local listing programmes
Improved working with voluntary sector
Support for volunteer programmes
PLANNING
And speaking of PLANNING – we also have the NAS such as Vic Soc and Georgian Group, SPAB – want and need to work with those that know about landscapes – often the setting for their key targets
And now NADFAS – welcome! We are so pleased to have you here, and are looking forward to working together. I hope this will be a long relationship and, apologies for the plug, don’t forget that we wiould love it if you would each consider officially becoming OGT members as well as, of course, becoming great friends and allies.
Historic Landscape Project

20. Historic Landscape Project
@leapthehaha
North, East & West Midlands, East Regions
South East & London, South West Regions
I don’t think you’ll need to get hold of me, Joanna and her OGT team will be your first port of call, but just in case you do, here are my details, and that of my job share partner Verena, who deals with other regions.
Historic Landscape Project